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So outraged was 66-year-old Sylvia Driskell at LGBTQI people in the US media, that she brought a lawsuit against all homosexuals on Earth.

In some sort of bizarre reverse of the Billy Connolly movie The Man who Sued God, Driskell, of Omaha, Nebraska, filed a federal lawsuit against all homosexuals, naming herself as ‘ambassador’ for the plaintiffs, namely “God and His son, Jesus Christ”.

In a seven-page, handwritten suit, Sylvia Driskell stated;

“Your Honor, I’ve heard the boasting of the Defendant: the Homosexuals on the world news; from the young, to the old; to the rich an famous, and to the not so rich an famous; How they were tired of hiding in the closet, and how glad they are to be coming out of the closet.”

…

“I, Sylvia Ann Driskell, Contend that homosexuality is a sin, and that they the homosexuals know it is a sin to live a life of homosexuality. Why else would they have been hiding in a closet?”

…

“I, Sylvia Ann Driskell, write, as well, we also know that if a child is raised in a home of liers [sic], and deceivers, and thieves that it is reasonable to believe that child will grow up to be one of the three, are all three.”

…

“I’m sixty six years old, an I never thought that I would see the day in which our Great Nation or Our Great State of Nebraska would become so compliant to the complicity of some peoples lewd behavior.

Why are judges passing laws, so sinners can break religious and moral laws?

Will all the judges of this Nation, judge God to be a lier [sic]?”

Oh dear. Poor Sylvia. Her comments would be tragic if they were not so hilarious.

Firstly, one would have thought that an omnipotent deity would have no need of any earthly “ambassador” and that if any such entity wished to punish homosexuals, then he would be perfectly capable of doing so of their own accord. Instead, if God exists, then he seems to have absolutely no problem with having his creation born gay, lesbian, bi, genderqueer, intersex, pansexual, asexual, or in variations in some of these themes.

The closet references are extremely amusing. “Why else would they have been hiding in a closet?” suggests that Ms Driskell actually think that non-outed LGBTQI people actually live in physical closets. Oh if only, dears. Where else would one find fabulous frocks to try on?

The statement concerning children is Facepalm City. “I, Sylvia Ann Driskell, write, as well, we also know that if a child is raised in a home of liers [sic], and deceivers, and thieves that it is reasonable to believe that child will grow up to be one of the three, are all three.” she writes, and of course the inference here is that if a child is brought up in a gay household, that child will also turn out to be gay. Not only does science not bear this out, but how then does she explain exactly where LGBTQI children come from if not from cishet parents, including Christian parents? Seems to me that Ms Driskell is of the Pat Robertson belief, that gays will die out because they can’t multiply.

Well, Judge John Gerrard, hearing the case in Nebraska’s US District Court, lost no time in throwing out Ms Driskell’s case. He told first flatly told her that she had no legal jurisdiction to act as “ambassador” for God and Jesus Christ. He then told Ms Driskell that it is not the business of US courts to decide whether homosexuality is sinful or not.

“The United States Federal Courts were created to resolve actual cases and controversies arising under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” stated Judge Gerrard. “A federal court is not a forum for debate or discourse on theological matters.”

Some people have too much time and money on their hands. Perhaps Sylvia Driskell should spend both of hers on improving her English spelling, in becoming educated on LGBTQI issues, in learning that a federal court in Omaha does not have the jurisdiction over the entire world (nor does the USA as a whole as she seems to think so), that the USA is a secular republic with a wall between church and state enshrined in the constitution, that an omnipotent God would not need a mortal being to do their bidding – and that if she wants to take the Bible literally, then as a woman she should be silent and subservient and by bringing her fatuous lawsuit, she has in fact blasphemed the very faith she claims to believe in.

In a document not released to the media, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) have suggested that they would introduce a “conscience clause” which would create legal protection for Christians who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds.

The document, Valuing our Christian Heritage, states that the party, while not rescinding England’s Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013, that the party opposed same-sex marriage and would amend the English law to allow “reasonable accommodation” to those opposing equal marriage on religious grounds.

The document states;

“UKIP opposed same-sex marriage legislation because it impinged upon the beliefs of millions of people of faith. Rushed through Parliament without proper public debate, the legislation is significantly flawed. It should have been subject to a review of the state’s role in marriage. We will not repeal the legislation, as it would be grossly unfair and unethical to ‘un-marry’ loving couples or restrict further marriages, but we will not require churches to marry same-sex couples. We will also extend the legal concept of ‘reasonable accommodation’ to give protection in law to those expressing a religious conscience in the workplace on this issue.”

In his introduction to the document, UKIP leader Nigel Farage gives his own views on the subject;

“Sadly, I think UKIP is the only major political party left in Britain that still cherishes our Judaeo-Christian heritage. I believe other parties have deliberately marginalised our nation’s faith, whereas we take Christian values and traditions into consideration when making policy. Take the family, for instance. Traditional Christian views of marriage and family life have come under attack of late, whereas we have no problem in supporting and even promoting conventional marriage as a firm foundation for a secure and happy family.”

The document, the contents of which are not mentioned in the UKIP 2015 manifesto, was not released to the media. It was however distributed to some churches and the strongly anti-gay group Christian concern.

Any such clause would give legal protection to any business which openly refused business to same-sex couples on grounds of their sexuality. Moreover, the wording “We will also extend the legal concept of ‘reasonable accommodation’ to give protection in law to those expressing a religious conscience in the workplace on this issue.” could effectively be used by employers to refuse employment to, or even fire, LGBTQI employees on the grounds of their sexuality. And given that two key UKIP policies are the repeal of the UK Human Rights Act, and pulling the UK out of the European Union – where we currently enjoy the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights – that would effectively give those discriminated against with no means of appeal in law.

UKIP claims not to be a bigoted party, and often point to members and politicians they have from various sections of societies, including the LGBTQI community. Sadly, even those have been known to voice bigoted views. Scotland’s only UKIP politician, David Coburn MEP (Member of the European Parlament), who is openly gay and is in a long-standing relationship, has always taken a strong stance against same-sex marriage. In an interview with Huffington Post (30 October 2014), Coburn attacked the subject, expressing his views in deeply offensive terms, stating, “It’s just for some queen who wants to dress up in a bridal frock and in a big moustache and dance up the aisle to the Village People, quite frankly if that’s the cost of upsetting a hell of a lot of people, then I don’t think it’s a price worth paying.”

NIgel Farage claims that UKIP is an all-inclusive and open party, whose manifesto is the best going. When any party hides a ‘manifesto within a manifesto’, particularly one which seeks to strip rights from the LGBTQI community (or anyone for that matter), while attempting to hide those policies from the media and the public in general, then that belies the true nature of that party. Likewise his unequvical opposition to equal marriage and his strong support for “traditional” marriage, coupled with his failure to either reprimand or dismiss David Coburn from the party speaks volumes about Nigel Farage personally and UKIP as a whole.

Some of us believe in democracy, where politicians are open towards and respect the rights of all sections of society. But then, some of use believe that all people should have equal rights – even queens dressed in frocks, with big moustaches, and dancing to the Village People.

The Christian group, Core Issues Trust, which recently held a ‘Transformation Potential’ conference in London, discussing conversion therapy, has lodged an official complaint with the UK General Medical Council (GMC), objecting that the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), one of the most renowned bodies in the field of psychiatry, maintain that all sexuality is “biological in nature and fixed at birth”. (RCP)

Core Issues Trust had adverts banned from London buses in 2012, which read “Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!” The High Court upheld the decision by Transport for London to pull the adverts, as did Mr Justice Lang for the Court of Appeal. Despite these decisions Core Issues Trust still maintain that the decision by TFL to remove the adverts was influenced by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, trying to gain gay votes.

The Trust are lodging the complaint on the grounds that they believe that the RCP view is “discrimination” against people “who experience homosexual feelings but wish to reduce them”. They have further claimed that the RCP has since stated that homosexuality is “neither inborn nor unchangeable”.

One of the complainants, Doctor Peter May, a former General Practitioner in Southampton, a member of the General Synod of the Church of England, and an apparent believer in miracles (see his entries at: http://www.cmf.org.uk/publications/authors/?id=173), stated “There is good evidence that sexual orientation can change. Yet the largest UK providers of psychotherapy and counselling, including the UK Council for Psychotherapy and the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, have all made ethical policy statements, banning any therapy which seeks to facilitate such a change.”

Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of the RCP, countered in an interview with the BBC, “The Royal College of Psychiatrists notes that homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder. There is a large body of research evidence that indicates that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is compatible with normal mental health and social adjustment.” Professor Wessely concluded, “We consider that the provision of any intervention to ‘treat’ normal sexuality is unethical.”

Should we be worried, dears? Not in the least. Indeed, I am more than happy for the Core Issues Trust to bring this complaint before the GMC. Dr May maintains that he has evidence that sexuality can be changed. I say bring it on.

Dr May and the Core Issue Trust are effectively lodging a complaint against science itself; science which has been peer-reviewed and which has overwhelming empirical evidence to support it. “conversion therapy” has conclusively been proven to be a complete and total failure, with ‘patients’ reverting to homosexuality, suffering depression and other mental trauma, and even committing suicide in some cases. That is precisely why some Christian groups in the USA who supported and carried out such practices later renounced it.

So, I say that the Core Issues Trust have done the best thing they ever could in lodging this complaint. I for one cannot wait to see them roundly and thoroughly defeated – as they shall be – in the hearing, made to look the laughing stock they are, and the quackery which is “conversion therapy” consigned to the scientific dustbin where it belongs, once and for all.

As the motto of the Royal College of Psychiatrists says, “Let wisdom guide”.

“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5, KJV)

Speaking on the conservative Christian US radio show, Faith and Liberty, Republican Party Congresswoman for Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, accused the LGBT community of attempting to invoke an age of tyranny in the USA by stifling “diversity in speech”, of wanting to legalise polygamous marriage and, worst of all, wanting to abolish the age of consent.

Bachmann claimed she believed the LGBT community wanted to, quote, “abolish age of consent laws, which means we will do away with statutory rape laws so that adults will be able to freely prey on little children sexually. That’s the deviance that we’re seeing embraced in our culture today.”

Because of course, the countries which have embraced same sex marriage and greater liberty for their LGBT citizens have all legalised polygamy and abandoned age of consent laws, haven’t they? Except they have not. Not one of them. Here in Scotland we have just recently adopted same sex marriage by the Marriages and Civil Partnerships (Scotland) Act; the greatest ever law in Scots history to define marriage. That Act makes it perfectly clear what the restrictions are concerning polygamy, age of consent and incest. In fact, the new Act has reinforced those laws.

Bachmann’s bigoted views are obviously based in the claims that gay people are perverts and, to use her own words, deviants. Now let’s look at the actual facts. The vast majority of paedophiles are heterosexual men, and yes, that includes those who prey upon little boys. Most children who are abused are victims of either family members or friends of the families, and most victims – of both sexes – are abused by their own fathers.

Makes one wonder about the conservative Christian claim about the sanctity of marriage and the family being the cornerstone of society, doesn’t it?

Then one has to consider the vast number of children, again of both sexes, who are abused by deviant Christian clergy. And again, the vast majority of these clergy are not gay. The largest group among such clergy are of course Roman Catholic priests (whom the RC Church still shamefully protect too much), and some will claim that because they are celibate, they must be gay. Not so. Being celibate is a lifestyle choice, born sexuality is not. And while RC priests may mainly abuse little boys, that is purely due to the misogynistic nature of the RC church, the clergy have much more access to them than little girls. Although the incidence is much lesser, there are indeed little girls who are sexually abused by RC priests. Just as there are clergy of many other churches (and other religions) who equally abuse both little boys and little girls.

And while their incidence is much, much lesser than that of men, there are indeed women paedophiles. The vast majority of female paedophiles prey upon little boys, and just like abusive fathers, they usually abuse their own sons. It is equally not unknown however for paedophile women to sexually abuse little girls, and following exactly the same pattern, the abusers are usually heterosexual, close family members or trusted friends of the family, including Christian clergy.

It is rather hypocritical for a Christian to point the finger and make accusations concerning the age of consent, when one considers what the Bible has to say. Isaac was 37 years old at the “Binding”, when God asked his father, Abraham, to offer his son as a sacrifice. Abraham was told of the birth of Rebecca just after this event. Isaac took Rebecca as his bride when he was 40, which would make her only 3 years old. This is the traditional counting given in the Jewish Midrash, which is the widely accepted age. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which in the Jewish custom of the time would have happened when she was 12 years old.

Likewise one would have thought Ms Bachmann, who portrays herself as the true blue all-American girl, and who (erroneously) believes the USA to be a Christian country, would prefer to keep a little more circumspect when it comes to the age of consent in her homeland, particularly among those states who share her views. Traditionally states in the deep south ‘Bible Belt’ of the USA were known for their rather loose views on consent laws. Probably the most high profile case was that of the marriage of rock musician Jerry Lee Lewis to Myra Gale Brown in Tennessee, who was not only 13 years old at the time of the marriage, she was Jerry’s first cousin once removed. Ah, but you say, that was in the past, and the USA has since ratified the age of consent to either 16 (same as Scotland) or 18, across all states. Wanna bet? As recently as 1999, a mere 15 years ago, one state ratified that consent at the tender age of 14 years old. That state is one of the most conservative Christian states in the Union, a state whose boundary signs claim “When Jesus returns, he’s coming here” (as if crucifying the poor man wasn’t enough), South Carolina;

SC CONSTITUTION SECTION 33. Age of consent. — No unmarried woman shall legally consent to sexual intercourse who shall not have attained the age of fourteen years. (1999 Act No. 3, Section 1, eff February 16, 1999)

The fact is, and this is what Michele Bachmann and those who think like her will never comprehend, the sexuality of any paedophile has nothing to do with their urges to abuse children. This is because the true motive behind paedophilia is in fact not at all sexual. The abuse of children is carried out by inadequate individuals seeking power over those weaker than them. Just like any abuse, be it sexual, physical, verbal or psychological, it is a form of bullying, carried out by cowards. That Bachmann is apparently ignorant of this fact makes her unfit to hold her Congressional post or to speak for the people she was elected to represent.

When it comes to polygamous marriage, there is not one LGBT community on the face of the planet which recognises this, nor has ever even called for it. And the majority of countries frown upon polygamy. Yet again, when one looks to the faith Michele Bachmann claims to follow so fervently, and is so self-righteous about, one finds polygamy being quite commonly practised, as it was among Jewish society of Biblical times.

There are two Biblical verses Christians opposed to homosexuality commonly fall back upon and both are in the Book of Leviticus;

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22, KJV)

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” (Leviticus 20:13, KJV)

The author of the Book of Leviticus was of course Moses – whom the Bible states had at least three wives; Zipporah is mentioned in Exodus 2:21, the unnamed Ethiopian woman (yep, Moses had an interracial marriage – take that Tea Party) appears in Numbers 12:1, while Judges 4:11 states that Hobab, the Kenite was the father of Moses’ third wife. And these are the three wives we know of. Moses (assuming he existed) as a wealthy and important man more than likely had a great many more wives. King Solomon is stated in the Bible as having 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Nor will the New Covenant argument wash on this one, for Jesus never condemned polygamy. In fact, Jesus states that the Levirate Law, that is the law given to Moses, would always endure (it doesn’t – because it is in fact diametrically opposed to the message of love which Jesus taught). Indeed, we find the following;

“If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.” (Deuteronomy 25:5, KJV)

Notice here that at no time does this stipulate that the brother-in-law of the woman should be unmarried, and in fact it would be rather unusual in Jewish society if he was. One can only assume therefore that Jesus, as an upholder of the Levirate Law, was fully in favour of polygamous marriage. Yet Michele Bachmann would have you believe it is a ‘deviancy’ which the LGBT community are attempting to enforce upon all.

Bachmann, playing the great American patriot, is as much on shaky ground on this one as she is on the age of consent. Some Scots-Irish (Ulster Scots) and Welsh settlers in America, both before and after the founding of the USA, either brought multiple-partner relationships. Polygamy was common among many Native American tribes and some settlers adopted this practice. Then of course there are the early polygamous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. No doubt Bachmann would counter that these people were not Christians. Well, in the case of Native Americans she may be correct. However, those who adopted their practices would indeed have been Christians. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Celtic peoples of the British Isles will soon tell you just how strictly Presbyterian they, particularly those of Scots and Irish background were, and to a great deal remain. And if Bachmann wants to argue that Mormons are not true Christians, one can only wonder if she would say that in public, or to the face of the Governor of Massachusetts and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, an active Mormon.

The point is that whichever way one looks at it, the USA, just like the Bible, actually has a history of polygamous marriage which no-one, not even Michelle Bachmann, can get away from. And that polygamy was never introduced by the LGBT community, but rather in many cases by Bible-believing Christians.

Everyone has the right to freedom of religion, thought and conscience. Michele Bachmann however is not practising that right. Just like so many ignorant bigots of her ilk today, she is attempting to cherry pick Bible verses to hide behind to support her own homophobia. This is clearly evidenced by her stating that any crackdown on hate speech is bringing in tyranny by “government controlled enforced speech and behaviour”. Basically, Bachmann is trying to argue for the right to go around spouting hate speech against those her limited intelligence chooses to be intolerant towards.

Even as an atheist, I would never seek to refuse anyone their right to their faith, so long as that faith is all-inclusive (as Jesus taught), evolves along with society and does not impinge upon the rights of others. If Michele Bachmann, however, is adamant to be a fundamentalist Christian, believing that the teachings of the Bible are not only true but should never change with the times, then I would suggest that she stops being such a hypocrite and leads by example, by stepping down from her governmental post, and remaining silent and subservient to her husband;

“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (Timothy 2:12, KJV)